Synopsis
The Bat (Летучая мышь, 1979) is a Soviet musical comedy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Yan Frid. A screen adaptation of Johann Strauss II's operetta Die Fledermaus, it brings together a stellar cast for 141 minutes of masquerade, deception, and sharp comic timing.
Eisenstein (Yuri Solomin) tells his wife (Lyudmila Maksakova) he is heading to jail — then slips off to an aristocratic masked ball instead. His friend Falk (Vitaly Solomin) sees a chance for revenge: he sends the household maid (Larisa Udovichenko), who wants to be an actress, in a bat costume to seduce the cheating husband. The wife finds out and shows up in disguise too. Oleg Vidov, Igor Dmitriev, and Alexander Demyanenko round out a cast that clearly relishes the material.
Frid stages the Strauss score with lightness — it feels like a party rather than a performance. Stream The Bat online on iFILM.
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